Sunday, June 30, 2013

Today Brazil beat Spain with a score of 3-0 in the final of the Confederations Cup.

The game was played at the famous Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro and I am extremely happy to see that the supremacy of Spain as the soccer super power ended. Good riddance!

Italy could have also beaten Spain a few days ago in one of the semifinals but they were unfortunate. Oh well. Italia! Italia! Italia!

Today is a beautiful day indeed, with the soccer world balance restored to its rightful and harmonious state, with multiple teams rightfully contending to be on top.

It was a great game with 2 goals scored by Fred and 1 goal scored by Neymar and this shows that Brazil manages to combine 'steel and silk' with great precision to create a game fabric that can endure any type of pressure. This new Brazilian soccer fabric will come in handy at next year's World Cup, when teams such as Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Argentina will undoubtedly put some serious pressure on the hosts.

I am reading today that the US -via NSA and CIA- is routinely intercepting voice and digital communication of high level European officials at the European Council in Bruxelles.

This is not totally unexpected given that the US spies freely on its own citizens. The US no longer shows respect for privacy when it comes to Americans and we expect the US to show that they care about Europeans?

I am wondering what else is the NSA doing that can top the facts the it spies at will against lawful Americans and against traditional US allies...

The only 'democratic' ingredient missing from making the US a full blown dictatorship is a president with more 'personality' than all the secret courts combined. Such a president could make amazingly crazy requests to these secret courts that will quiet and instill fear for good into all democratic dissidents and those who do not acquiesce to the fully and secretly blessed new presidential powers.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

I think Snowden has a lot more actual data on the mass spying the US government performs on its subjects. Snowden will no doubt release even more documents showing the full extent of USG abusing the powers granted to them by all of us.

Today we learned that after Sep 11 the NSA has started to collect massive amounts of raw internet data we generate every single second of the day. How can we continue to remain so silent and passive in the face of these secret NSA operations aimed at fighting 'terrorists'? By their logic we are all terrorists since they spy on all of us simultaneously.

Snowden is a national hero and if the USG claims he 'broke the law' I would like to remind you that so was George Washington in late 18th century. I like what George Washington did.

Monday, June 24, 2013

The USG has decided to charge Edward Snowden with 'espionage' and theft of 'government property'.

It is as clear as daylight that the USG has become abusive and has changed the conversation from defensive statements to bullying, pure and unadulterated bullying. They have revoked his passport and have started to threaten all and any country that dares to grant Mr. Snowden political asylum.

I would like to see more proof that the US national interests have been affected by Mr. Snowden's brave disclosures of government abuses. We, as citizens and nation, are better off by having the knowledge and certitude that the US does spy on us at will.

We need to respond to illegal information snooping 'in kind', with tons information that falsely overwhelms the NSA's 'filters'. If we do this collectively and efficiently we will overwhelm their 'security' and render the NSA snooping totally irrelevant.

How can the US provide a 'fair' trial to Mr. Snowden when the US would be using secret courts and secret documents? Are we so naive to think that the USG can be 'fair' in this case?

Look at what the USG has done with the Guantanamo 'prisoners' and you will get a glimpse at the 'impartial' judicial processes that the USG can resort to while going around the world and touting the 'rights and freedoms', we as Americans, are 'blessed' to have been 'granted' by our constitution. Why is the USG attacking the US constitution?

The US age of naivete is over.

With Mr. Snowden's aggressive pursuit, the USG has successfully joined the few governments of the world that are abusing their powers with impunity and nonchalance.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

No matter what you do, do not use any financial services from Bank of America.

They are 100% crooks and are not to be trusted with any of your financial needs.

My mortgage used to be serviced by BoA and I am getting as far away from them as possible.

I have engaged another bank to refinance and BoA gave me a call to ask me about my intents and I have gloated in my ability to not be connected with a bank that has the reputation of a thug. BoA is a disgrace...

According to the NSA director (who is an Army general, and I find this highly problematic), Gen. Keith Alexander, claims that the NSA spying on all of us saved lives and prevented more than 50 terror plots.

Not unexpectedly, the FBI -as good mafia membership rules would require it- has also quickly jumped on this bandwagon and are arguing for the utility of secret courts and a continuation of large scale spying on all us, indiscriminately.

We are supposed to believe that terror plots -that cannot be independently verified- were 'prevented' from happening by using secret documents allowed to be collected by an obscure and secret court (FISA) that allegedly is totally constitutional. Mind you, this court has never, ever, refused to reject any -how else?- secret request made by the NSA. Think about that for a minute.

Our government behaves just like a bunch of mafiosi/thugs using secret decisions of a secret court to enforce national 'security'. I rub my eyes thinking about this and get anxious as we seem to be helpless in the face our government's egregious abuses.

How can we prevent the government from using secret courts to track us? How can we defend against secret decisions? Are we playing a rigged game that only the government can win?

Besides, the NSA blatantly claim that they have 'prevented over 50 terror attacks'. This is the weakest of all logical arguments that exist, as NO ONE can prove with certainty what DID NOT HAPPENED due to an unequivocal reason.

For instance, you cannot 'prove' that I am not sick now because I exercise 3 days a week. It might be because I eat healthy or because I have good genes, or a myriad of other connected or independent reasons. Proving why a particular outcome has not happened is not just lame, but is totally fallacious.

Our government's claim that some terror attacks did not happen only because of the NSA spying on us is tantamount to me saying that the government is not lying to us. For a short proof see this.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

There are very few things that I dislike when it comes to food or restaurants and buffets are close to the top of the list.

When I talk with friends about buffets most of them like them because they 'give us a choices that we cannot get any place else'. I am amazed that the surplus of choices argument can be used in this case.

Buffets cater to people who are either perpetually food dyslexic or have ADD. What difference does it make if you can get 15 types of desserts when all of them are made with high fructose corn syrup? Why would you want that to begin with? It is as if you were to make a choice between smoking cigarettes and driving drunk. They are all bad and they are not really rational 'choices', or are they?

Discernment, thoughtfulness, self-control, and rationality are opposites of food buffets and I like to hang around every single concept that opposes food buffets. If it were after me I would ban buffets tomorrow.

As the days pass I read, hear, and see that the US government is literally collecting all our data without our permission. They claim it is for terrorism fighting reasons but I highly doubt that. The government appropriates more powers for its agencies ever single day. Perhaps we need a -legal?- revolution to wipe the slate clean and forever remove the government from our private lives.

I feel that the government's spying on us is highly unconstitutional and in spite of the fact that the government claims the indiscriminate data collection is 'legal' I think it is totally wrong and I doubt it is fully legal since everything seems to judged by secret courts. Aren't these called Kangaroo courts?

They claim that they only collect metadata from our phones, but that metadata is still data that belongs to me and I need to be informed that the government is looking at my personal metadata.

Why should we trust our government? I am staying as far away as I can from Google and other providers, including Facebook- and limit my communication to a bare minimum just because I do not want to leave too many electronic and data traces for others to collect without my approval.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Not many decades ago, the US was a bastion of individual freedoms. We were envied and admired around the world for government transparency, open courts and laws, ability to petition the government, individual freedoms and privacy, and freedom of the press. Our rights were protected and defended by the US government. Individuals had equal rights with the government's.

I am reading today multiple pieces of news that confirm that the US government does not care about our privacy at all. Government agencies tasked with 'our national security' absolutely hate the idea that we have private lives and thoughts.

During the past decade the tables have gradually turned and the government has gained the upper hand.
They can snoop on our entire communication portfolio 'as they see fit' and without
shame or any court/independent supervision. Our rights have been flushed down the toilet by well funded government
agencies and very lenient 'secret'/closed courts. How can such government practices be constitutional? Soviet Union used to do exactly such things and we were criticizing them. As we can read now, we are doing the exact same things, only amplified by many thousands of times in terms of magnitude (scale) and intensity.

How can we go around the world and tell -say- China or Iran that they are not respecting their citizens' human rights when we are as guilty of even more egregious abuses? Have we lost our sense of free Americans and have become immune to government's actions and abuses? How can we accept sheepishly what the government is doing when they violate our basic constitutional rights at privacy?

In the name of defending us from evil doers our government has become pure and distilled evil.

Some people will say that if we save a single life by allowing the government to spy on us then this is perfectly legit and we should mind our own business. I beg to differ with this train of thought as -daily- we lose hundreds of lives to gun violence, car crashes, and tobacco use and the government has never spied on us because we drive a car. Or has it?